iPad programming...Please be nice...

Honestly, Apple has never been good about enforcing their App Store policy rules. Heck, they've even decided to retroactively change their mind on occasion. So while you may be right and it may just be fine, it's also a bit scary.

I no longer entrust my livelihood to Apple's whims about the iPhone platform as a professional developer. As for hobby projects, why would I want to flush Apple's ego by producing free stuff so they can continue to brag about how great their platform is while commoditizing my work and me as a developer?

Apple's attitudes about dumbing down the UI makes sense for a lot of users that just want to twitter about the sandwich they just ate or pump more of their private lives onto Facebook. Dumbing down the SDK and telling developers that they should enjoy writing software that runs on a black box that is purposefully missing a lot of modern tools is just dumb.

Kerome Wrote:Anything that includes Lua or Python components, or even uses Bison/YACC to generate a parser, or something like networking auto-generated code, could be deemed to be in violation, and that includes a lot of library files which people may be using without knowing what's inside.

I wonder how many people using FreeType realize that they're in violation too because it utilizes a virtual machine/bytecode?

I agree with you that much of what's in the agreement, particularly in terms of scripting and simple byte code techniques and auto code generation like lex/yacc/etc, is practically unenforceable, but the simple fact of the matter is that language concerning these technologies does appear to be in the agreement and that's just the way it is, whether or not any of us fully understand its meaning. It would be flat-out irresponsible of any of us to recommend using a technology which is expressly forbidden by the agreement, regardless of whether or not we may speculate that it is unenforceable. Doing so could be potentially very costly for others if Apple insists it is against the terms of their agreement and rejects multiple months worth of labor and other related investments. Not to mention it is against the terms of usage for this forum for anyone to deliberately aid in violating agreements with other companies.

That said, as a moderator, I'm not going to flat-out bust anyone for recommending Lua or FreeType or even Unity, although it is imperative that warning that it may be rejected by Apple is included in the discussion. IANAL, so it may actually be possible that these technologies are allowed after all, for all I know. Plus, I don't know when everything is in effect in terms of which version of the agreement and enforcement of it as well, nor do I know who has signed it or not. So the situation is fuzzy to a degree, but we know things are changing, so it is wise to be cautious.